


I en Annen Verden

by Loki_Lover_1234



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Clint Barton Feels, F/M, Gen, Handwavy Magic, Handwavy Science, He is not irredemable like some others, Implied/Referenced Torture, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, Loki (Marvel) Feels, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Some things WILL remain the same ... but others will change ., The Author Regrets Everything, Thor has made mistakes, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Unreliable Narrator, but he has a lot to learn, the author doesn't know what they are doing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:08:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28455834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loki_Lover_1234/pseuds/Loki_Lover_1234
Summary: Tired, exhausted, tortured and brainwashed, Loki arrived on Earth on orders of The Mad Titan. He had to get the Tesseract. We all know what happened after that.BUT ......What if in an Alternate Universe, the ending of the Avengers went a little differently? What if Thor and Loki did not immediately leave for Asgard? What if the other Avengers were not convinced to give up the Tesseract quitesoeasily?
Relationships: Clint Barton & Loki, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) & Tony Stark, Loki & Avengers Team, Loki & Thor (Marvel), Loki & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 58
Kudos: 144





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So I am really nervous about this. I just joined AO3, and this is my very first fic so please don't judge me too harshly. I just couldn't get this one scene out of my head and so I had to write this. Constructive Criticism is very welcome.  
> (This chapter is pretty much the same as the movie. Just shows the beginning of the movie in Loki's point of view )
> 
> And Summaries. HA! They are my mortal enemies.
> 
> I of course don't own Marvel (and if I did, everybody would have had a far better fate and interesting characters wouldn't have been killed off for no reason).
> 
> I have used certain parts of the Avengers script which of course belongs to Marvel.

Loki was shaking. He was _exhausted_ and his entire body ached. His head throbbed with the headache which had become his constant companion for what seemed like an eternity and sweat dripped from his forehead _._

As the bright blue, glowy smoke of the Scepter faded, Loki slowly got to his feet, blinking to clear his eyes, adrenaline pumping through his veins. His back protested as he tried to stand up straight. He saw two mortals both dressed in black. One of them appeared to be nearly as tall as him and had an eyepatch that reminded him of _Odin._

The man also looked like he was a leader of some sort judging by how the other(shorter) man stood half a step behind him. What was it with old, eye patched men being leaders? He spied another aged mortal, who for some reason, looked familiar. Several other men dressed in dark suits with guns cocked were moving towards him.

"Sir, please put down the spear!" Eyepatch said. 

He briefly debated on what to do but as he felt a sharp tug on his mind, Loki looked at the Scepter and his mind suddenly went blank.

Then suddenly he pointed it at where Eyepatch and his assistant(?) were standing and shot a beam from the Scepter towards them. The shorter man tackled Eyepatch to the ground and they both barely missed Loki's fired shot.

All hel broke loose. Machine gun fire was shot at Loki, but the bullets bounced off him like a boss. As if on autopilot, he took out all the agents in the blink of an eye. As he jerked back and gasped in air, the blue fog receded from his brain. The facility was almost entirely trashed at this point. He saw the the short man from before get up but Loki was quicker and touched his chest with the Scepter. 

"You have Heart." he said to the man ( Barton- he learned ).

Eventually he went around touching other agents and staff with the Scepter when he suddenly spied Eyepatch (Director Nicholas Fury, he gathered from Agent Barton's mind ) trying to leave with the Tesseract.

"Please don't. I still need that." Loki said.

"This doesn't have to get any messier." Fury said.

 _Hah_ Loki thought. ' _It doesn't have to get any messier' he says. As if he has the first idea of what is actually going in in this situation_. A sharp pain shot through his head again.

"Of course it does. I've come too far for anything else. I am Loki of Asgard ( _HAH_ he thought ), and I am burdened with glorious purpose." _Glorious purpose indeed._ If that was not utter drivel, he didn't know what was. 

" _ **Loki**_? Brother of Thor?" the familiar looking aged man (he was supposedly a scientist and his name was apparently Selvig.)

Loki still couldn't place why the man appeared familiar ) asked. Loki couldn't help looking away in irritation. _Of Course_ ** _Thor_** _would have to come up in_ ** _everything_** _, wouldn't he?_ Thinking of Thor led to all the anger and resentment which he had managed to repress until now, bubble up under his skin again.

"We have no quarrel with your people." Fury said trying to placate him. 

His people? _His people?_ The _people_ who had always considered him only second to his not-brother, always _lesser_ than the Golden, perfect THOR, who considered his talents inferior and where even servants laughed at him?

The _friends_ who would tolerate him only because of Thor, who would look down upon him in every way possible, verbally abuse him, their _prince_?

The _"father"_ who never looked at him with anything other than disappointment and to whom he was nothing but a tool?

His " _mother"_ who always sided with Odin and excused his actions and used her honeyed words to manipulate him? His _"brother"_ who asked him to _know his place_? 

_Besides_ , he thought bitterly, _it wasn't even just that of course_. He was not even a real _Asgardian._ He was a _Frost Giant._ A _Monster_ pretending to be an Asgardian. But let him play pretend for now. And to Asgardians, Mortals were all inferior of course.

 _"Like Ants"_ a harsh raspy voice whispered in his mind, " _just like you are to_ ** _him."_**

He jerked his head forward suppressing a shudder "An ant has no quarrel with a boot."

Fury tilted his head in consternation , narrowing his eyes. "You planning to step on us?"

"I come with glad tidings, of a world made free." Loki corrected.

"Free from what?"

"Freedom" Loki said. He suppressed another shudder as he remembered the Maw's words: _Hear me and rejoice. You have had the privilege of being saved by the great Titan. You may think this is suffering, but no. It is salvation._

"Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart..." He twirled around touching the Scepter to Selvig's heart now. Ah, he saw now that Selvig was one of the mortals who had helped Thor during his banishment. _Of course everyone always fell head over heels to help Thor_. Selvig was also the one who had been injured by the Destroyer and then healed with a healing stone. "You will know peace." 

“Yeah, you say peace. I kind of think you mean the _other_ thing.” Fury said.

Loki suddenly noted the Tesseract's energy building up within the half-destroyed facility and realised it could cause an implosion leading to the ceiling caving in on all of them and that the director was asking unnecessary questions to stall them till that happened. It certainly wouldn't kill _him_ , but it would kill or at the very least fatally injure most human beings.

"Sir, Director Fury is stalling. This place is about to blow. Drop a hundred feet of rock on us. He means to bury us." Barton said. _Oh yes_ Loki had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. _I hadn't noticed that at all._

“Like the pharaohs of old,” Fury adds. _How much more obvious could they be? Why would Fury even agree to it out loud if he wanted to stall?_ he wonders briefly but decided he had neither time nor energy to think about it.

"He's right. The portal is collapsing in on itself. You got maybe two minutes before this goes critical." _Do they REALLY think I_ ** _still_** _haven't realised that?!_

"Well, then..." Loki said and Barton shot Fury in the chest who fell down.

Loki supposed Fury must have been wearing some sort of bullet proof clothing since he could not spot any blood. Barton then grabbed the case containing the Tesseract and left the lab, with all of Loki's other thralls following half a step behind Loki. To his utter mortification, his spine chose that moment to protest rather painfully causing him to bend over stumbling and he was even more embarrassed having to be temporarily supported by one of the mind-controlled agents. 

But as they walked out of the facility quickly gathering weapons and got into a lorry, a somewhat tall, dark haired woman (who Loki learnt was Agent Hill by a little prodding at his mental connection with Barton-not painful mind you, he'd had enough of that himself to do _that_ to anyone .) looked about in confusion. 

"We need these vehicles." said Clint. 

"Who's that?" Hill asks referring to Loki. 

"He didn't tell me." 

Agent Hill gave them a rather suspicious look as they got into the lorry and started moving. To his endless shame, Loki stumbled again, as his back gave out while getting on the lorry.

Suddenly they hear Fury's voice through Hill's walkie-talkie and Loki sharply turned towards her, in a movement mirrored by Clint.

"Barton is.... compromised." 

Hill turned to shoot at Clint but he'd already taken a shot at her and kept shooting as he got into the driver's seat and started the engine. 

"He's got the Tesseract! Track it down!" Fury says through the walkie-talkie (the Facility was in an even worse condition). 

Agent Hill slipped into a jeep and followed Barton's truck. Loki's trucks SCREECHED across the tunnel. Several SHIELD trucks pulled up to them. _Oh well_ Loki thought, _getting away without a chase would be too good to be true I suppose._

He reluctantly and painfully(his back protesting again) got up and used the scepter to flip over the SHIELD vehicles. (It would cost energy he didn't _have_ to spare, to use his own magic) 

Agent Hill's jeep roared out of a side of Barton's truck and pulled up alongside them on the left. She went way ahead and pulled her brakes, swerving into a 360, facing Barton's truck and driving in reverse. Barton reached out of the window and open fired. Agent Hill probably thought 'to hell with it' and shot her windshield and return fired on Barton. 

Suddenly amidst all this chaos, there was a massive shock-wave and it was obvious to Loki (and to anyone with a single braincell really) that the Facility had been overwhelmed by the energy and had crumbled. But the destruction did not stop there and the tunnel they were passing through caved in almost trapping Hill. Suddenly Fury started firing at Barton from a flying contraption and in a fit of rage Loki shot at him with the scepter. The contraption (a chopper, he learnt) caught fire but Fury jumped out and fell to the ground. By the time he came back to his senses and shot at Loki, they were already too far. Loki finally sat back to give his back some much needed rest. 

Loki was sitting down on the stairs of the underground lab where Hawkeye had brought them and observing everyone. He had spoken to all of his thralls individually but mostly with Barton. The man was smart and resourceful and he was quite a high level SHIELD agent.

Loki had learnt about "The Avengers Initiative" from him and about his ...... _friend? partner?_ Natasha Romanov. He also learnt that the man had a secret family about which only Agent Romanov and Director Fury knew and they were hidden in a farmhouse in someplace called Missouri where they could live safely.

From some other *ahem* _SHIELD agents ,_ he learnt that _**HYDRA**_ an organisation which was _supposed_ to have been eradicated after some Great War or something, and something "The Captain America" had given his life to achieve (the fact that he had turned out to be alive was a different matter entirely ) was actually still alive and had it's roots deep within SHIELD. But SHIELD was opposing him anyway so why bother doing anything . 

Suddenly a _sharp_ and very agonizing pain shot through his head and he felt the Other directly contact him. His heart hammering, he sat up straight, projecting a simulacrum to the Barren rock which may once have been a moon. The Other walked towards him and he had to suppress his tremors. 

"The Chitauri grow restless." He said in his raspy voice.

"Let them gird themselves. I will lead them into glorious battle." Loki said feeling rather proud with himself for being able to keep his voice and breathing steady.

"Battle? Against the meager might of Earth?"

"Glorious, not lengthy. If your force is as formidable as you claim." Loki wondered at his own recklessness challenging the Other in his own domain whilst he was far from recovered. 

"You question us? You question _him?_ He, who put the Scepter in your hand, who gave you ancient knowledge and new purpose when you were cast out, defeated?" The Other spat.

"I was a king, the rightful king of Asgard! Betrayed!" He _had_ to bite out. And he _had_ _been_.

They technically couldn't charge him for anything he had done during Thor's banishment because he _had_ been the Rightful King. And then The Fools Three and Lady Disdain _had_ to betray him. Because Of COURSE _whatever_ he was doing was because he was jealous of Thor. It obviously couldn't be that he was trying to end a _war_ that Thor had started. 

"Your ambition is little, born of childish need. We look beyond the Earth to greater worlds the Tesseract will unveil." And of course his _needs were childish ._ His wants didn't matter. The same thing he had been hearing since he was but a child.

"You don't have the Tesseract yet. I don't threaten, but until I open the doors, until your force is mine to command, you are but words." Brave words he thought, but empty.  
"You will have your war, Asgardian." The Chitauri snarled.

He stepped even closer and Loki tensed even more (he hadn't thought that was possible).

"If you fail, if the Tesseract is kept from us," The Other was circling him and the stench of his malevolent aura was too much to handle now and Loki's eyes started watering.

"There will be no realm, no _barren_ moon, no _crevice_ where he _cannot_ find you. You think you know _pain_?" He raised his hand towards Loki and Loki swallowed _hard_ blinking rapidly to hold back the _tears_ , nornsdammit! All there ever was _here_ was _PAIN._ He had _learned_ that the hard way. He was terrified but he managed to keep still.

"He will make you long for something _as sweet_ as pain." And the Other brought his hand to Loki's head breaking the simulacrum and sending Loki's consciousness back to his body at the underground lab with a sharp jolt. He tried to steady his breathing but couldn't stop a single tear from rolling down his cheek. All he could hope for was that no one had noticed .

He thought for a moment that he caught Barton looking at him but he could have been mistaken.

Once he was in control of himself he looked up to see Barton and Selvig talking. 

"Where did you find all these people?" Selvig asked Barton.

"SHIELD has no shortage of enemies, Doctor." Barton replied and oh if that wasn't true. In fact SHIELD had a great enemy they did not even know about.

Clint held up a screen showing information on Iridium. Loki got up and walked towards them. 

"Is this the stuff you need?" "Yeah, iridium. It's found in meteorites, it forms anti-protons. It's very hard to get hold of."

"Especially if SHIELD knows you need it." Barton sniped.

"Well, I didn't know!" Selvig said defensively.

Then Selvig saw Loki and piped up. "Hey! The Tesseract is showing me so much. It's more than just knowledge, it's... truth."

"I know." he said, but he really didn't. It wasn't as if he had been close to or in a direct contact with the Tesseract since he got here. He turned to Clint nonetheless. "What did it show you, Agent Barton?"

"My next target." Ah focused this one, wasn't he? "Tell me what you need."

"I'll need a distraction. And an eyeball." 

Loki raised an eyebrow but he trusted the man to know what he was doing. Besides as long as he was under the control of the scepter it wasn't as though he could betray him. As he looked around and saw all these people working for him he felt a pang of bitterness. These men only worked for him because of the Scepter(After all he had never been able to inspire loyalty. Even from his so called _friends_.). As soon as they were free, they would loathe him for life, and he didn't blame them in the least. 

He turned and walked towards the Tesseract. It's blue glow was rather alluring and he just couldn't help it. He had to touch it. When his fingers did come in contact with the cool blue cube, it was rather anti-climatic. He supposed he had been expecting _something_ to happen.

As he turned to leave, Clint caught up with him.

"Do you need anything else, Agent Barton?"

Clint hesitated. "I need to ask you something, sir."

"Well, go right ahead."

"Are you alright, sir ?" Loki blinked. That _definitely_ hadn't been what he was expecting.

"Why do you ask?"

"I don't mean any disrespect sir, but you look ill. I also caught you stumbling twice without any reason." 

Loki felt a wave of shame rising on realising that his moment of weakness had been noticed, but he pushed it back down and looked closely at Barton. If it hadn't been for the utter sincerity in the man's eyes and the fact that he couldn't _possibly_ lie to him right now, Loki would have been certain that he was being mocked. As it was, the man appeared _concerned_ for _him._

 _It's somewhat morbidly fascinating,_ Loki thought distractedly, _how completely the Scepter changes one's loyalties and priorities._

"I am fine" he replied, the dismissal clear in his voice.

"No sir, you are _not_ fine. When was the last time you even ate?"

"I-" He couldn't remember, but he supposed it would have to be the last time he was on Asgard which was ..... how long ago exactly? An year? More? Nonetheless he took a deep breath and said "It's none of your concern Agent Barton."

"It is, sir." Loki was startled. Wasn't Barton supposed to obey him? Well he supposed he _hadn't_ given any direct orders.

"Your well being _is_ my concern, sir." When was the last time someone else has been so invested in his well being?

"Please let me help you." Even though this kindness was only because of the Scepter's control, Loki was touched. How could he not be? After all it was after so long that someone was offering him unconditional kindness. 

"How could you possibly help me any more than you already are?" Loki asked, deciding to humour him. "Well, for now," said Clint "I could get you some soup, which you _will_ eat while sitting down on a _chair_. You _could_ show some compassion to that back of yours, you know."

Loki chuckled. If things continued like this, he wouldn't be able to help becoming rather fond of the feisty little Hawk, which could only lead to endless problems, considering that Barton would _loathe_ him when he came to his senses and for a very good reason. _But well_ , he decided _let me enjoy it while I still can._

"Well then, lead on ...... Clint."

He was free. He could not feel any of the disgusting yellow remnants or any blue haze from the gem in the scepter. The Mind Stone, he now remembered.

He took a deep breath. Despite the fact that he had recently been very humiliatingly tossed around like a rag doll by the Hulk, he was happier than he had been at any point in the past year or so. Well not _happy_ , per se, but well......

He was finally _**free.**_ His body ached but he did not care. He was _**FREE !!**_

There was no other presence in his mind other than his own. No one could influence his decisions or emotions now but him. He was free. Oh how _long_ had he waited for this. For his mind to be untouched of the foul aura of the Other.

The powerful but disgusting aura of _The Titan._ He shuddered _._ He _could_ shudder now without worrying about being observed by anyone (for the moment, at least ).

Well after all this he had certainly learned not to take his _own_ capability to make good decisions or even _bad_ ones for granted. They were after all made freely by him under only his will.

He took a few deep breaths and then started to dig himself out of the very prominent Loki shaped hole on the floor of Stark Tower (He had to admit that the Hulk was _very_ strong. He was the only one who had really been able to hurt him in any way after all).

It took him some time to get out of the crater. As he hoisted himself on his elbows he heard several footsteps. A clanky metallic one, a very familiar one and a very heavy one, two unfamiliar ones (one of which was so silent that it could not have been caught by human ears ) and another somewhat familiar one. Ah . So all six heroes were here and getting into positions behind him.

He took a deep breath and turned. _Indeed . So they were_ ** _actually_** _getting into positions behind me. Ah of course Barton is at the forefront._ He mentally sighed. _Why would I expect anything else?_ Well at least he hoped if he surrendered now, he wouldn't have to fight anymore. He was _so_ tired. So _exhausted._

He glanced at Stark for a moment. 

"Well if it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go. If you somehow liked it, then I am happy to have given you something mildly engaging (I hope) to read.  
> Comments and Kudos are welcome. They would make my day. :)
> 
> As I said, constructive criticism is always welcome, but please don't flame.
> 
> Umm.. should I keep it a one shot or I post more chapters...?.....


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony's POV after the battle .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own any of the characters. They belong to Marvel.

To say that Tony was worried about Pepper would be the understatement of the year. Yes, technically he knew she should be safe, but until he could _see_ her beautiful face and kiss her, he wouldn't be able to set his mind to rest.

At least he knew Rhodey was safe. Besides, he had long lectures due from both Pep and Honeybear about how he had been a reckless idiot and risked his life _again_ in his latest stunt. Though to be fair, on the scale of how close he'd come to dying till now, this probably ranked the highest. And wasn't it just sad that he _had_ a scale like that? Well that was just his life. But then again he had _had_ to do it, otherwise all of New York would have been toast.

Selvig had been moved from his roof and was likely being transported to SHIELD's Medical facility at this very moment.

Well, now to deal with Reindeer Games. Though he was wearing his suit as they made their way up the tower, it was pretty much screwed (he'd have to repair it ) at this point. His thrusters( _all_ his thrusters) were damaged, his repulsors were toast, basically he was just wearing it for show(though what was the point of that, since even the outer structure was damaged). He hadn't exactly anticipated having to throw a nuke into a wormhole. The suit wasn't meant to survive space. So yeah, he'd been to space. It wasn't all fun and games though. He never thought he'd say this, but he'd much rather he _hadn't_ been to space. He was just going to store what he'd seen up there into a little box and unpack it later(he wished it could've been never).

As they reached the living room, he saw that the Hulk had redecorated the floor with Loki and he was just crawling up the stairs- wait. The Hulk had smashed Loki to the floor hard enough to create a freaking _crater_ (no _god_ no. Crater on his living room floor. He almost groaned out loud.) on the floor and Loki was crawling up and it didn't look like he had any bones broken. He gave Thor a sideways glance. Just _how_ durable were these guys again? Enough to survive a smashing from the Hulk without any visibly broken bones clearly. He really hoped Loki wasn't going to pull some voodoo shit now because his suit was trashed and so he was probably the most helpless guy in here, even if the suit's frame might protect him somewhat. But he couldn't really expect the guy to come quietly.

So they all surrounded Loki (was it really surrounding if they were all just kinda .... _posing_ behind him ?) with Barton pointing an arrow right at his head. Loki turned with a resigned look on his face ( he was aware enough to have heard them then ) and just sighed.

Then looking right at him, he said "Well if it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now." 

Tony couldn't help but smirk a little. Ah so there was a snarky little shit hiding somewhere under all that self-aggrandisation. Pity he couldn't get to know _that_ Loki. Oh well. He saw Thor looking at Loki a little strangely, though.

Well he couldn't exactly keep standing there and he honestly wanted to get out of the suit. He hoped there was something strong enough to restrain Loki. And he'd already have to repair his brand new tower. Damn Loki. 

"All right, get him on his feet. We can all stand around posing up a storm later. By the way, feel free to clean up." Rogers shot him a look while Thor pulled his brother to his feet and suddenly held out cuffs and shackles with weird engravings in what he supposed was in Old Norse. He tensed up ready for Loki to lash out in any way but he didn't. Instead, he shot a vile look at the cuffs and then at Thor. Thor looked back stubbornly. To is surprise and utter amazement, Loki honest to god(heh) _held out_ his hands to Thor.

_WHAT._

Sure the guy had lost, but why the hell would he actually _hold out_ his hands to be cuffed. It didn't make any sense. And he had seen how much Loki seemed to hate those cuffs. He wasn't even making a fuss about it! Was he actually just gonna come quietly?! That was all well and good but it _didn't make any sense!_

"Will those cuffs even hold him?" Natashalie Rushmanoff asked ( What, you couldn't blame him for not being completely over it ). At least it was a good question, but considering that it had all those Norse runes and Thor had had them, he supposed they should.

"Yes." said Thor cuffing Loki's hands. "These are cuffs specially designed to prevent the captive from using their magic."

Ah that explained the _vile_ look. To be honest, Tony had momentarily forgotten about the fact that the guy could do magic-which was apparently a real _thing_ now- with how astounded he was by the guy's durability. But of course, from what they has seen, other than having super human strength and a frankly mind-boggling level of durability, this guy could create numerous lifelike illusions, become invisible ( seriously _invisible?!_ Just _How_??!) and perform a bit of telekinesis and that was without the scepter.

And Loki _could_ have just suddenly turned invisible to avoid them, but he _didn't_. What was his play here? Surely there couldn't be something they were missing? There was no way Loki could use imprisonment (without his magic) to his advantage now, was there? If not for that, _why_ would he surrender so willingly? _It didn't make any sense_ _whatsoever_ and it was driving him up the walls. 

"So, what are we gonna do now? S.H.I.E.L.D hasn't got another super strong prison somewhere, do they?" he asked Romanoff and Barton. 

"No, not really" Romanoff said deadpan at the same time that Thor said "Loki will be going back to Asgard, of course." 

"Wait, what?" Barton asked, indignantly. "Are you saying after _all_ he did here, you are just gonna take him back to Asgard?!"

"Well, he will be punished on Asgard, of course." 

"There has been some sort of a misunderstanding here." Cap began, "Loki committed the crimes _here_ on Earth, so he should be punished on Earth."

"But he is Asgardian!" Thor exclaimed.

Loki actually snorted -elegantly(how anyone could _snort_ elegantly, he would never understand)mind you-then. Right. So there was a story behind that .

"Yeah that's not really how things work here buddy." Tony said. "He committed the crimes on Earth and so he'll be punished on Earth. _That's_ how things work here."

"Yes I understand that is how things work here for humans, but Loki is _not_ human! How can he be punished here?!" And was that a touch of superiority that he heard in Thor's voice?

"Uh ... by the UN , I supposed .." came a soft voice. Everyone (other than the two assassins and Loki ) started on hearing Bruce's hesitant voice. Apparently at some point, Bruce had turned into back into himself and was clutching his pants which had somehow not been entirely torn up during his time as big and green (he'd have to make Bruce some extra elastic and flexible pants which wouldn't fall off during the transformation ). Also, Rudolf was observant. Though he supposed, anyone would be wary enough of the Hulk to keep a constant watch on them after they'd been used by him to redecorate the floor.

"Ah Brucie-bear! You're back with us ! " he exclaimed. "We need to get you into some clothes. JARVIS will direct you. J?" 

"Yes sir." came his refined British voice. Everyone except Romanoff and Loki(seriously did nothing phase this guy?) jumped. "Who is that?" Thor looked around tightening his grip on his hammer. Steve looked equally puzzled.

"That is JARVIS. My very snarky A.I ."

"You speak too highly of me sir."  
"That was not a compliment."   
"Whatever you say, sir."  
Tony huffed with a grumpy grin. "Well everyone that's Jarvis for you."

"JARVIS is incredible Tony!" exclaimed exclaimed Bruce, sounding very impressed. Tony absolutely did _not_ bask in his fellow scientist's praise. And to his surprise he saw a brief but definitely there, grudgingly impressed look on Reindeer Games' face. _Aha!_ So he could impress even evil outer-space dictators with god complexes!

"Man, that _is_ cool!" Clint added.

"Thank you for you compliments, Dr. Banner and Mr. Barton." Tony just grinned.

"If you would follow my instructions, Dr. Banner." "Right." said Bruce following his voice a little nervously and disappeared into the elevator.

Tony turned back to Thor "And yes Bruce was correct, Loki will probably be judged by the UN ." 

"Which is what, exactly?" Rogers interrupted. 

"Ah that's another bit of information you missed during your time as Capsicle." Cap rolled his eyes .

"See, the United Nations is an organisation comprising of many governments all over the world established after World War II." He glanced at Rogers.

"They aim to maintain international security, peace, maintain friendly relations between nations worldwide, yada yada, all that jazz you know. It's got a higher jurisdiction than any single government and has it's headquarters here in New York, so yeah."

Thor turned thoughtful. "I understand why you might want to punish Loki here but I have orders from Odin All-father to bring him back to Asgard with the Tesseract and-"

"Hey Hey Hey, there's been some sort of a misunderstanding." said Barton, his brow furrowing, Rogers' following suit while Tony and Romanoff's eyebrows shot up.

"You ain't takin' the Tesseract from Earth. What if there are other threats? We need something powerful to deal with them." Rogers looked conflicted about it but seemed more inclined to agreeing, and Tony couldn't believe he was agreeing with Rogers, even if only in his own mind, but he _could_ understand. On one hand one one exactly wanted more Tesseract weapons to be made, and if Thor was to be believed, then it was their work with the Tesseract that had drawn Loki to them and it apparently signaled that ' _Earth was ready for a higher form of war.'_ But now that they had defeated the Chitauri, what guarantee was there that _that_ would not signal the same? And in that case they _needed_ to be ready. And they needed something powerful for that. Tony blinked to clear his head of what he saw up there.

There was a brief silence.

"What?!" asked Thor incredulously. "But how are we-and even if Loki is to be punished _here- How_ am _I_ supposed to ever return to Asgard without the Tesseract?!"

"Uh, the same way you came?" Tony said.

Wasn't there some sort of Einstein-Rosen Bridge or something involved? That's what he vaguely knew from SHIELD's files and Doctor Jane Foster's notes(which those little shits had stolen). And oh he'd love to ask about those but Pointbreak didn't seem like the type of guy to know all that stuff. He certainly wasn't going to ask Bag of cats over there, who for someone who seemed to love talking so much, was being _awfully_ quiet for some reason( _doesn't make sense_ his brain screamed). It wasn't like he was gagged but he hadn't said a word yet. Not that he was complaining, mind you, but _it didn't make sense_ that he was being so quite.

"Yeah it also comes in as a whoosh of bright rainbow light and leaves behind some weird-ass runes behind." Clint added.

Oh yes. They were talking about the Einstein-Rosen Bridge. But why would a wormhole(?) of sorts, leave behind distinct runes? Or was it even an Einstein-Rosen bridge at all? That was probably the closest term they had, to whatever that thing was. Tony mentally groaned. He was going crazy now. How did this goddamn thing work? A real device(?) capable of transporting people _light-years_ of distance in seconds. At least he thought the transport would be near instantaneous. It had to be at least light speed right?

Thor sighed heavily. "That is the Bifrost or Rainbow Bridge." _Rainbow_ Bridge _seriously?!_ Thor briefly glanced at Loki and turned away when Loki merely raised an eyebrow (why would the guy not _speak?!_ (It was like the guy was _choosing_ to have no say in his fate-wait...what...) _Oh there was a story involved here_ , Tony thought.

"The Bifrost was destroyed." Thor said.

Tony's brain short-circuited. _What?!_ An Einstein-Rosen Bridge that was in regular use, _suddenly_ got _destroyed?!_ How?! And seemingly without any effect on the surrounding universe whatsoever, since as far as he was aware Asgard was still standing. But was the Bifrost even an Einstein-Rosen Bridge? An Einstein-Rosen Bridge was pretty much a wormhole and the Bifrost was apparently a rainbow _bridge_ or acted as a _bridge_. But how? And how had Asgard managed to regulate the Bifrost, _whatever_ it was, according to their wishes, in the first place? He mentally shook his head. He could obsess over the Bifrost later. But how did Thor get here without the Bifrost and if the Bifrost broke _after_ that, how would Thor know about it?

"Uh...what did I miss?" Bruce had returned and was looking around at everyone's frowns.   
"Oh nothing much. We were just saying how Loki should be punished here on Earth and not on Asgard, and that we keep the Tesseract to defend ourselves-in case those aliens decide to visit again- but Pointbreak here, says that he can't return without the Tesseract-"  
"Wait." Bruce interrupted. "But he _got_ here without it."  
"Exactly." Said Tony happy that Bruce had immediately caught on.

"It's because the Bifrost-" Thor began but Tony cut him off, "which I am _assuming_ is something like an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, and can apparently transport people _light-years_ of distance, within _seconds_ , is **_broken_**." Bruce's eyebrows shot to his hairline and now that everyone else seemed to realise exactly what they were talking about, they seemed equally surprised.  
"Wait." said Steve brow furrowing and eyes widening. It was kind of comical to be honest. "It was something that could transport people light-years of distance in seconds?! Something like that exists!?"

Tony managed not roll his eyes but it was a close thing. "Well clearly it _did_ ," he drawled, "but apparently it _doesn't_ anymore." Here, he turned to look at Thor and caught Loki's lips curved up in the tiniest of smirks, eyes looking downwards, from the corner of his eyes. The guy still hadn't spoken though. _Why_ was he not _saying_ anything?

"So _how_ did the Bifrost get destroyed exactly?" Romanoff asked carefully while everyone else stared at Thor. "The Bifrost had to be very powerful if it could transport people such massive distances near instantaneously, and it had clearly been doing that for quite sometime. So how did something so powerful _break_?" 

Here Thor fidgeted uncomfortably. He glanced around the room as if searching for a way out and then finally opened his mouth with a sigh.  
"I broke it. With Mjolnir."

There was a stunned silence. Then,

"What the _hell,_ man?!" asked Clint. Natasha's and Bruce's eyebrows appeared to be in risk of merging with their hairlines while Steve's eyes looked like they would pop out if he widened them anymore Tony noted distractedly. Because he was trying to stop himself from giving in to hysteria. Then he decided to sod it.

"Why in the _Universe_ would you destroy the Bifrost, which was your way to travel to other _worlds_ at near instantaneous speeds?! Have you completely lost it?! Destroying what's probably one of the wonders of the galaxy Goddammit!!" He wondered briefly if they even lived in the same galaxy but decided to ignore it for the while.   
_"What were you thinking?!"_

Thor looked at him with a very tight expression on his face. Tony just realised that he had gone and screamed at a being with god-like powers who could kill him very easily, especially in his broken suit. He would have to get out of it at some point. It was getting increasingly uncomfortable. Anyway, a maybe angry-god at hand. What to do, What to do......

Surprisingly though, Thor took in a deep breath in a visible effort to calm down. He cleared his throat. 

"I would rather not talk about it now." _Well of course not._ But from the corner of his eye, he spied a slightly surprised look on Loki's face. It was gone the next moment. This was the first time Loki had shown any sort of _real_ reaction. Clearly he had expected Thor to tell them why he had broken the Bifrost. Which....why..?....

"Alright, okay. That's fine." said Cap clearly trying to diffuse the situation. It was _not_ fine by the way. Not fine at all.

"Thor, at least tell us, _how_ you got here without the Bifrost. Maybe you could go back that way, and come back again for Loki's trial." Again Loki seemed momentarily surprised on hearing 'trial'. Why? Wouldn't he have gotten a trial in Asgard? That's.... why would he not get a trial. No matter how heinous a crime was, the criminal always got a trial. But that was on Earth. Maybe things were different on Asgard?

"No." said Thor. "My father had to utilize a lot of dark energy to send me here." Wait. _What?! Dark energy?!_

"Dark energy affects the universe on the grand scale." Well _yeah!_

"Conducting dark energy through oneself-" wait through _oneself?!_ What the _hell-_ "is very difficult. He was very drained by the time he had mustered enough energy to send me here. He could not possibly do so again without risking his health." 

The factthat he _had_ done it once was a huge deal. And Brucie-bear apparently being the only other person in the room with a modicum of intelligence spotted this too.

"Wait. What do you mean he _conducted_ dark energy through _himself_ ?" Bruce asked incredulously. "How is that even _possible_?!" _Yes thank you!_ he thought. Bruce had managed to say that a lot more calmly than he would have been able to.

"With seidr and the Odinforce. My father is much stronger than anything you humans could even dream of."

So okay. Firstly _rude._ Secondly two 'Gods' were just standing in front of them so how much stronger was this Odin guy? Thirdly, he named whatever this 'Odinforce' was after himself, so he was clearly stuck up. He didn't think Pointbreak would appreciate hearing that, though. And fourthly.....

"Uh what is this seidr, exactly?"   
"Magic." said Thor.   
"Oh come _on!_ There has to be a better explanation than that."

Thor hesitated. Then he finally said....

"Loki can provide you the best explanation of that."

Oh _great._ But this had collectively turned all their attention on Loki who _glared_ at Thor and honestly? It was a pretty scary glare and this was coming from someone who dealt with glares from Pepper on a daily basis. _Sorry Pep, but even your glares can't win compared to this_ , he mentally apologised.

"Well Reindeer Games?"

Loki raised an eyebrow at him. "Well _what?"_ Well at least the guy had not lost his ability to speak.

 _"_ Are you gonna explain or not?"

"Well obviously _not_. What have I to gain by explaining to you how seidr works?" Unfortunately he had a point there.

Thor just looked resigned. But there was another _... something_ in his eyes which Tony could not place.

"Well alright then, there's no point keeping you here right now. We'll ship you off to the basement and hope that you can't escape without your magic."

"Wait..." said Romanoff. "Ship him off to the basement? Do you have dungeons down there or something?" Barton snorted while Bruce and Rogers raised their eyebrows.

Tony rolled his eyes. "No of course not! That dungeons business is you SHIELD guys." Now, Natasha gave him a look.

"What! Well anyway there's a kind of bare room in the basement with rather stronger walls that usual..."

Yeah so he had a kind of cell in his basement. What? You couldn't blame him for being paranoid after everything that had happened. What if he ever needed who temporarily hold a criminal who had tried to attack him in his house? Wouldn't be the first time. Besides it was being useful now, wasn't it? At least it had a comfortable enough bed, a tiny attached toilet and even a table and a chair! Though he really hoped that Loki wouldn't be able to get out without his magic. He supposed a part of him was also counting on Loki to be as unreasonably and _unnaturally_ cooperative as he'd been till now. And well he _had_ made the walls strong enough to withstand repulsor blasts from Iron Man suits, so....

"You just happen to have a cell in your basement?" Rogers asked, rather judgementally in Tony's opinion. Well screw him!

"Yeah, I do." He retorted and looked at Thor. "You alright with it, Pointbreak?" Thor looked rather conflicted but then gave a small reluctant nod. "Well just for now, I suppose."

"Excellent" said Tony clapping his hands once. "Lets get you down there Rudolph."

Loki sighed, but again did not protest much. Or rather, did not protest _at all_. Tony was honestly starting to get more than a little uneasy. The guy was honestly letting himself be captured without protest and resignedly leaving himself in the hands of his enemies. 

Oh.. speaking of which.....

"Wait, wait. What about the Glow Stick of Destiny? What do we do about that?" He saw Loki shake his head at the 'Glow Stick' comment.   
"We're supposed to hand it over to the S.T.R.I.K.E team." said Rogers.  
"Yeah that's right." said Romanoff. "The sooner I can get rid of this the better."(Right, she was holding the scepter)  
But Tony had some misgivings about that...

"Hey you sure we shouldn't just keep it with ourselves?" he asked.  
The others all turned to look at him.  
"Like we're the Avengers, 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes', I think we should keep it... Besides, I don't trust SHIELD to not figure out a way to start making weapons out of this too."  
Barton opened his mouth, but Rogers cut him off. "Yeah, considering _that_ I don't think we should hand it over to SHIELD."  
Look at that. Rogers agreeing with him. Will wonders never cease.

"Handing it over to SHIELD is our best bet now" Romanoff began but Tony cut her off.

"Yeah no. Forgive us if we don't really buy that. Especially me. I haven't exactly forgotten what happened, you know."

"Wait, what happened?" asked Bruce.

"I don't think this is a good place to discuss that." She said glancing at Loki and then shooting a much subtler glance at Thor which Tony thought the guy must have missed.  
"Right, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree." Tony said. "But anyway, that doesn't mean we're trusting SHIELD.”

"So you're planning to keep it here." Barton said raising an eyebrow. "And now _we_ are supposed to trust _you_ to keep it?"

"I'm sorry, was it _me_ who tried to make weapons with the Tesseract? Who's to say SHIELD won't do it again with the scepter?"

"I agree with Stark. SHIELD cannot be trusted not to use the scepter for their own goals. Let it stay with Stark." said Thor and Tony was pleasantly surprised. Then Thor turned to him. 

"Can I trust you to not use it for for your own, personal interests?" he asked.   
"Uh yeah." said Tony. "Unless our world is in danger _again_ and it's the only way or _among_ the only ways to protect us."

"Well that's sorted out then." said Thor.

"Wait. Bruce what do you think? What should we do?"

"Well" said Bruce "I'm not exactly in favour of SHIELD right now." He shot Romanoff a dark look. Ooh Romanoff had been the one sent to retrieve him right? "So yeah, I'd much rather the scepter stay stay with Tony than SHIELD."

"Well" he said clapping his hands once "That's settled then." Then he looked at Rogers. "Wait, you _do_ agree with us, right?"

"Yes, I do. The Scepter should rather stay with you than SHIELD. At least for now." He said narrowing his eyes a little at Tony as he said the last part. Gee thanks for the vote of confidence.

"Well okay then." he said glancing at the assassin couple. "You've been outvoted."

"Well okay." said Barton. _Wait that was it?_ "As long as you can convince Fury." He added then. _Ah there it was._   
"Hmm." said Romanoff. "That's not gonna be so easy."  
"Oh we'll do something. We _did_ save the city and all so we should have some privileges. So if all of us agree, it should be fine."

"What about the Tesseract though?" Romanoff asked "What do we do about it?”

Thor opened his mouth, but Tony cut him off. "We'll think about it a little later." Honestly though, that was a good question. They would _never_ let him keep both of them. Well, if only he _could_ convince Fury. Besides there was Thor and the matter of how he would return to Asgard. For just this moment though, everyone seemed happy to let the matter rest. 

That went rather more smoothly that he thought it would.Oh right there was still a war criminal in the room. Loki was standing right beside Thor, but Tony pretty much hadn't noticed him during their conversation. It was as if he had somehow managed to suppress his larger than life personality and he had done it with the sort of ease and expertise that made Tony uncomfortable. It was as if he was _used_ to hiding his presence in plain sight without even doing anything or moving from his position. But why would a guy like Loki need to know that? He was some sort of a prince right? And he was pretty. So why diminish his presence? Oh _god_ these questions were driving him mad. Nothing seemed to make sense with this guy.

"Okay, so we _do_ need to take Rudolph down now." Loki still did not protest. Tony took a deep breath and then shook his head to clear it. Oh he also needed to get out of this suit right now.

"I need to get out of this thing first." He said walking over to the other corner of the living room.

"Just gimme a sec." he told the others who were sending dubious looks at him.

"Hey, don't you think you should keep wearing that?" asked Rogers. _Of course._ Tony did roll his eyes this time.

"Well Cap, it's seen more than a _bit_ of mileage, and it's not exactly in top form. All it's doing right now, is restricting my ability to move. So yeah, I gotta get out of it."

He walked towards (and took the scepter and the Tesseract with him) the silver elevator at the edge of the room which would take the suit off him and then take it to his lab.

"Where are you taking them?" asked Thor.

"Uh for now, to my lab with my suit. We can retrieve them later if needed."

The reason he was keeping them in his lab was of course because no one else could access them (non-violently at least) without his permission and thus he could at least have a chance to convince Fury.

Once the suit was off him and he was back outside, he felt very naked. If Loki did decide to lash out now, even if it was without his magic, Tony would be toast. But really, wearing the Mark VII now was pointless. And none of his other suits had homing bracelets and he really didn't want to clunk his way to the ground floor. So no suit. And he would have to trust the others to watch his back. YAY! Wasn't that _so_ much fun. And he didn't _really_ know any of them.

Barton worked for SHIELD so... he would have to be careful with the man.  
And he didn't trust Romanoff as far as he could throw her and that would be a _long_ distance with his suit on. Bruce was alright and probably the only one he'd trust and besides, the Hulk had saved his life.

And Rogers... he didn't know how to feel about him. On one hand he had challenged Tony to a fight and on the other, he had also saved Tony's life. On one hand he was Howard's Golden soldier, his pride and the one person Tony had been forced to compete with all his life and had lost to, _every single time_ despite the man not even existing and on the other hand he didn't _really_ know the man. 

He didn't know what to think of Thor. On one hand he seemed to be like an honourable golden retriever and on the other, even he seemed to have an ingrained superiority complex, however much he might try to deny it.

"Well follow me." he said and Thor urged Loki forward and then the rest of them followed behind as Tony got into the elevator. Oh well, getting into an elevator with the guy who had defenstrated him and tried to kill him barely a two hours ago.

Okay cool. It was all cool _(not)._ They all got into the elevator and the doors closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never thought writing a conversation between six characters would be so tough. Dear god. I have an even greater respect for all fanfic authors now.  
> I just hope they are in character and I haven't screwed it up too much.
> 
> If you liked it please, please comment and leave kudos! They'd make my day!  
> Constructive criticism is always welcome but please don't flame.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the WONDERFUL and absolutely AWESOME worstloki for beta-ing this chapter for me!! (I still can't believe that THE worstloki beta'd this!!)

Clint had observed Loki throughout the whole powwow in Stark's living room. The guy's attitude completely threw him. The whole time, he just stood there quietly. To an amateur it might've seemed that he was lost in his own little world, but Clint knew better. Loki was very much attuned to the discussion (Clint thought it was idiotic to discuss _anything_ in front of him anyway). They were discussing him, what was gonna happen to him, where he would be incarcerated, and the whole time he just did _nothing_?!

It almost seemed like he didn't care what happened to him. 

Clint knew that Loki was a Prince of Asgard. That had to mean he had some sort of special privileges, right? But then he should have been jumping to go to Asgard. And he would be judged by his father. Despite them not being on good terms, and the guy being the king of Asgard, he had to have _some_ affection for his son, right? And Loki should have been trying to take full advantage of that fact, _right?_ Besides, arguing that he could not be judged by ‘these mere mortals’ should have been right up Loki's alley. _But he hadn't said a word_.

It hadn't escaped Clint's notice that Loki, had he really wanted to, could have tried to escape them and most likely would have succeeded. But he hadn't even _tried._ He didn't have any advantage being locked up this time. Yet here he was, trailing behind Stark and Thor and they got down from the elevator and walked towards the cell. No objections.

As they reached the cell, Clint could feel a strange feeling of doubt creep up on him. 

He glanced at Loki's face and saw a flicker of surprise as he took in the cell. It had a comfortable enough bed, a table, a chair and a small cubicle which was obviously the toilet. 

For a moment he thought it was a haughty incredulousness at the small room but then Clint realised it was just the opposite; He had been expecting to be kept in a much worse place. But _why?_ He had been a prince, right? Clint had expected him to find this less than adequate. Apparently, so had Stark who also seemed to have caught the brief glimmer of surprise on Loki’s face. He was _sure_ Nat had caught it too, but her poker face was too good and he couldn’t tell what she thought.

As it turned out, _everybody_ (including Thor) had expected him to profess his displeasure in some way, but he _didn’t_ , and simply got into the cell.

Clint’s misgivings only grew stronger and made his stomach churn.

His memory of his time as one of Loki's mind-controlled minions was certainly not crystal clear but there were some things he couldn't help but remember (even if he didn't want to). 

Loki had seemed very tired for the most part. He had even seemed injured. He had even _stumbled,_ without any reason, if Clint's memory served correctly. Now all that could be nothing. Or it could be everything.

He could have ignored all of it, but there were the other little things that kept him from dismissing Loki as just evil and therefore pushed him to find some alternate (better) reason for why Loki did what he did rather than 'he is a crazy evil alien overlord.'

He remembered Loki asking each of them how they felt. He remembered how Loki had asked each of them to get some rest after working non-stop for a day and a half (Which was something SHIELD certainly wouldn't have given them time off for during or sometimes even between missions). He remembered something about how Loki hadn't eaten in quite some time and then Clint had made him sit down and have some canned soup and dry fruits. And he remembered being concerned. And wasn't that just sick? Him being worried for someone, who had for all intents and purposes mind-raped him?

 _Though was it really mind rape?_ A small voice in his head murmured. Wouldn't he have done the very same things and more for SHIELD that he had done under Loki? It wasn't as if he was a very honest, innocent or ethical man. He spied on and killed people for a living. All that was different was who had been directing him. Would he have thought twice if SHIELD had asked him to do the very same things?

All that had happened was that his priorities had realigned themselves. Yes, whatever he was doing was _not_ of his own volition, but what if the end goal had been different? If SHIELD had asked him to kill people assuring him that it would help save more people, he _would_ have done it. 

What happened was not his fault, but he wasn't completely out of control either. He had made the decision to not shoot Fury in the head but rather in the chest, despite being aware that he was wearing a bulletproof vest. Loki had also let him have a lot of freedom on what to do and how. It made him very uncomfortable.

But even if it was under the scepter's control, he _had_ been concerned about Loki, and for good reason. He had looked ill, he had looked _weak._ And he had looked worse _then_ , than he did _now,_ even after the Hulk smash. And the thought of something that could have hurt someone so strong and durable so badly... made him afraid.

(He remembered the slightly uncertain and distrustful look flitting across Loki's face when Clint had made him sit in a chair and brought him the soup. 

"Thank you," he had said in an almost inaudible voice. 

He remembered how later when Loki had asked him to get some rest for a few hours and he had insisted that Loki do the same, he had appeared to be startled. Not in an offended manner, though. It was almost as if he was surprised that someone would care about him needing rest. 

"I don't need to sleep as much as you mortals," Loki had replied.

"There's no harm in it though, is there?" Clint had insisted, "Don't worry, no one will find this place unless they know precisely where to look. And no one except me knew about this place till now."

Loki had looked at him oddly but had slowly agreed.

Clint had been a bit wary at first, but he went to sleep near Loki, for some reason needing to see with his own eyes that he was alright. He knew Loki was a hundred times stronger than him, but he still couldn't help but feel oddly protective over him for some reason.) 

He still didn't feel sick at himself for feeling protective over Loki for some reason. And now his suspicions were stronger than ever. Loki, who had been barely bruised after the _Hulk smash,_ had been a lot more injured and tired when he _first came here_. 

And he was sweating heavily, had clammy skin, appeared dizzy and disoriented at some points and he definitely had muscle cramps from the way he’d been moving. All signs of heat exhaustion. He did not know if that had any specific significance, if heat affected Asgardians more than it did them, but it was certainly something worth noting. 

And of course, there was the very agreeable way he was behaving since after the Hulk smash to consider. The signs were not good at all. Though the thing that bothered him the most was that he, for some reason, simply couldn't remember what Loki's eye colour had been during the invasion. It was a very insignificant detail really, but the fact that he just _could not remember_ made him restless. He saw that they were green now, but it could not remember them being green during the invasion. He could not remember it being any other colour either.

"So," began Stark, "do I really have to talk to Fury now?"

"You _could_ of course just give up the scepter...." began Natasha.

"Oh, no, no, no, _fine_ , I'll go talk to Fury. As for everyone else, do you plan to stay here for now or go… wherever… I don't know, just wherever."

"Well, if you wouldn't mind, friend Stark, then I would like to stay here for the time being, given that Loki is here." said Thor.

"Oh that's fine Pointbreak, Jarvis will take you somewhere you can freshen up a bit. So, how about the rest of you...?"

"...I don't know," began Banner, "Is it appropriate? I mean—"

"Oh Brucie, why wouldn't it be appropriate, if you want to stay here for now, just say the word."

"Um… for now I suppose..." Banner said hesitantly.

"Great!" Stark said, clapping his hands.

"Well,” Clint began, “even if you somehow manage to convince Fury and _he_ manages to get it through to the WSC idiots that you'll keep the Tesseract”— Thor shuffled like he wanted to say something, but stopped himself for the moment— “and the scepter,” —which really everyone knew that Stark was gonna have a big part in convincing the higher ups too; He had too much money and influence and was sure to use it, especially with the WSC's latest blunder with the nuke (Hill had told him and Nat that)— “Fury's gonna send someone to keep a watch over you."

Stark snorted indecently.

Clint continued over that, "So since I'm already so involved with all this, I might as well stay here for now. If it's alright with you, that is." 

Oh Fury would definitely send someone. Stark had known this and that was probably why he had offered even him and Natasha the chance to stay here. He didn't want to be caught off guard with some new person he knew absolutely nothing about.

"Oh sure, birdbrain,” —Clint rolled his eyes—”Stay here. You're not gonna get too far if you try to spy on me though, that I assure you."

Clint didn't doubt that. After Natalie Rushman, Stark obviously wouldn't be taking any chances. 

The main reason he wanted to stay though, was the one most people would think should make him want to stay as far from the Tower as possible. Loki. But he had a hunch and if it was right… And even if it was wrong and Loki was somehow really evil, he wanted to know what would happen to the bastard. What sort of punishment he would get.

"I don't doubt it," was the only thing he said out loud.

Natasha looked conflicted. Clint supposed Natasha would want to stay too, given that he was staying. And she might've felt left out. But Stark would _definitely_ not trust her.

As if on cue, Stark turned to Nat. 

"What about you 'Natalie'? Wanna stay in my house again?" Clint only just stopped himself from snorting out loud. 

Nat raised her eyebrows. For once she was completely straightforward though.

"If you'll let me. You've no reason to trust me after all."

Stark seemed a little surprised at that. Banner and Rogers appeared confused but Thor looked a little preoccupied about something. Loki was simply sitting down on the bed with his eyes closed. 

Clint suddenly realised that they had been discussing things in front of Loki _again_ . He mentally cursed. The guy just seemed to have some sort of ability to make himself as unnoticeable as possible, and given his personality (or what they _thought_ was his personality. His true personality could be a bit different if Clint's suspicions had any truth to them.) that was a big deal.

"No, I don't," said Stark, "And I would be well within my rights to kick you out right now." 

Clint's hackles rose a bit. He knew Stark didn't trust Nat but still hearing him talk like that made a tide of protectiveness surge inside him even though he knew that Nat would be annoyed to know that. 

However, Stark continued.

"But you've been involved in this mess too, and if you stay here there would be even less of a chance that Fury sends someone else to spy on me and I definitely know to watch out for you. And I'd like to have that certainty. So if you stay here until this mess with Loki is over, then you've got to convince Fury to not even think about sending anyone else here and to not even try to hack JARVIS. He only makes a fool of himself every time SHIELD tries that."

"Noted," said Nat with a somewhat amused look on her face. Clint _was_ a little surprised that Stark let her stay, though his reasoning made sense.

Then he turned to Rogers.

"So Cap, you're the only one left. Whaddya think? You wanna stay?”

Rogers starts to say, "I know we got off on the wrong foot—" but he was cut off by Stark.

"And we'll probably 'get off on the wrong foot' many times in the future if you stay. So, will you?" 

Cap hesitated. 

"If you'll let me."

Stark clapped his hands. 

"Alright, that's settled then. Jarvis will take you all to your rooms. You guys refresh up a bit while I try to inform our irate pirate of the developments and then tell him that both the scary blue things will be safest with me, at least for now until things are sorted out. And that you all surprisingly agree with me," He narrowed his eyes at all of them in the last part. 

"Well—" began Thor, but Stark interrupted him.

"You're not taking the Tesseract anywhere, at _least_ until we decide what to do with your brother." 

"Yes, I have accepted that I will listen to what your world's decision will be about Loki, Stark," Thor sounded sullen. Clint noticed that he didn't say he would _accept_ their decision, though.

"Well what _were_ you saying then?" Stark asked.

Now Thor looked a little sheepish. "You said 'irate pirate'. I doubt that you were talking about an actual pirate though, so who were you referring to...?"

Clint snorted. Nat and Banner's eyebrows had shot up and even Cap shook his head. Stark looked like he was about to have an aneurism.

"Right. Not from this planet." Stark groaned, "I was talking about Fury."

"Why would you call him a pirate though?" Thor asked.

"Um... because he dresses in black leather and has an eyepatch?"

"My father has an eyepatch."

They heard a muffled snort. They turned to briefly look at Loki. Nat raised an eyebrow at Clint, while Thor seemed to be holding back from rolling his eyes. Stark's lips curled upwards. Right they were _still_ talking in front of Loki for some reason. 

But it was the first reaction he had shown throughout the conversation (Fury would have a fit if he found out they had discussed everything with Loki right there.) and Clint didn't doubt he had heard every word of it. This was complete madness. They were discussing all their plans in front of the criminal! This was something completely unheard of! Speaking of which, even Coulson would have a fit if he ever learnt about this. 

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, his mood became even worse. Because Coulson wouldn't ever be able to know about it, would he? Because he was dead. Because _Loki_ had killed him. Even if Clint's suspicions were right, he would never forgive Loki for that. Nor would he ever forgive him for controlling his mind for that matter. Where was even the thought of forgiving him for anything coming from. He didn't even know if his hunch was right. He didn't even know if he wanted it to be right. It would be so much easier to just continue blaming him. But if _he had_ been acting under duress..... then it wasn't _entirely_ his fault. And when Clint wasn't being punished for something that wasn't his fault, why should _Loki_ be? 

Speaking of which, if he _did_ want to figure out anything, he would have to actually tell the others about this. But first he would have to tell Nat. Get her insight.

He was broken out of his gushing river of thoughts by Stark's voice.

"Riiight. So, most pirates having only one eye is just an Earth thing?"

"I would not know about that, but why would you even assume such?" Thor asked, looking somewhat baffled.

"Ah... it's a popular culture reference. Anyway," he turned towards him and Nat and pointing at them said, "And it's your job to convince Fury to not send any more spies after me."

"We can only try, you know," Nat says with a wry smile, "What he does is up to him."

"Well then knock yourself out."

Then he paused. "Oh, don't forget to call off the S.T.R.I.K.E team. I don't want them anywhere near my tower."

Nat did a weird, exasperated nod-headshake with her eyes closed. "Yes, I know. I haven't got that bad a memory you know." She told him.

Stark shrugged. "Just making sure no one _accidentally_ forgot to mention it." Clint did roll his eyes this time.

Then Stark turned to all of them. "Jarvis will show you to your rooms. There should be everything you need for a temporary stay. J?"

"Yes sir. If you all would kindly follow my instructions."

Thor and Banner's rooms were on the 64th floor. His, Nat's and Rogers' were on the 65th floor. Thor and Banner had obviously been put together on the same floor because he was the only one who would survive and could even fight back if the Hulk decided to show up without invitation. Though if the Hulk actually decided to go on a rampage nothing would stop him from climbing up the stairs or simply jumping up to the next floor, but he supposed it was the thought that counted.

They decided to meet up again in two hours in Stark's living room. But as Nat was about to walk into her room, Clint grabbed her arm. 

She raised an eyebrow in question and he pulled them both to his allotted room. The room was rather large and spacious and seemed a _lot_ more comfortable than anywhere he had ever stayed before. In fact it was more of a suite than a room really, with a beautiful bedroom with a King sized bed, a bathroom, a small _kitchen_ with a fridge, and a small personal _living room, for god's_ sake! He supposed he was rather used to SHIELD's rather (compared to this) sub-standard rooms. 

Well this _was_ Tony Stark, and hey, he wasn't complaining. Natasha punched him lightly to get his attention. Right.

"So what did you want to talk about?" she asked. 

"Who said I want to talk about anything?" 

She shot him an unimpressed look. He sighed and sat down on one of the sofas in the living room. 

He needed to tell the others about his suspicions about Loki and as soon as possible but first it would have to be Nat. He didn't want to repeat it twice but he also didn't want to be considered mad. Nat was highly logical and he needed her to assure him that his doubts were indeed reasonable and that he wasn't nursing some weird, creepy variation of Stockholm syndrome. He let himself shudder for the first time and swallowed hard. 

"Clint?" Her voice was softer, "What is it?" 

He took a deep breath. "Promise me you'll actually listen to me and consider what I'm saying before declaring me nuts?" 

He smiles dryly at her. She was beginning to look a little alarmed now, "And why'd you think that I'd do that?" she asked, carefully sitting down next to him.

He huffed slightly. “Because it sounds weird even inside my head. And because I don't fully understand why I'm even entertaining these notions. Why I can't just leave it alone and stop being bothered about it." 

There was a pause.

"Clint? What's all this about?" Her steady voice managed to calm him just a little bit.

"Who. _Who_ is all this about," he said.

"Alright. _Who_ is all this about ?" Nat asked, humouring him. 

"Loki."

After Clint finished telling Natasha about everything (about Loki's condition when he arrived, how tortured he'd looked, the signs of heat exhaustion, the weakness, the fact that Clint couldn't remember his eye colour from before) there was a long silence. He didn't tell her about him making Loki have soup and dry fruits, about feeling genuinely concerned about him, about keeping guard over him even as he slept. Those were just... too personal. And wasn't it strange that only he and Loki knew it and that he _actually trusted_ for some ridiculous reason to guard this secret too?

Finally Natasha broke the silence, "You are sure about all of it? You're absolutely sure that these are your own memories and not something Loki put in your head to confuse you?" 

It was a valid concern but it made Clint feel very irritated and oddly defensive (but of who?). "Yes I am _absolutely_ sure. They are definitely my own memories. You have to believe me, Nat!" 

He said the last part with a bit of desperation in his voice, because if even Nat didn't believe him, if even _she_ thought that he had gone off his rockers, then _no one_ would believe him.

Nat sighed, "But Thor is his brother. If Loki had been acting out of character, wouldn't his own brother have noticed?" 

Clint wanted to groan in frustration, "Well, I've observed Thor shooting Loki weird glances _thrice._ Earlier in the living room and even down near his cell. So Nat, don't even try to tell me _you_ didn't notice that." 

Natasha stared ahead and Clint started to become restless. After two minutes of complete silence he couldn't take it anymore. 

"Nat, do you think I'm crazy? Because I'm not. I'm _NOT,_ " He almost shouted. Natasha looked up. "I am _not_ being mind controlled anymore, I'm **_not_ **, you have to believe me!" He took in a few deep breaths to calm himself down. 

"I believe you," Nat suddenly said. Clint turned to look at her and she sighed deeply, "We'll need to confirm this. We'll have to talk to the others once we all convene again. If we get proof... we take this to Fury."

Clint could have almost cried out in relief at that. Somebody _did_ believe him. _Nat_ believed his words. And since she was the one to break him out of the scepter's control, Fury was likely to trust her opinion about his mental state. 

She squeezed his hand lightly and smiled at him. 

"We'll make the best out of it. We always do."

Clint nodded. 

Nat ruffled his hair getting up, "Go take a bath, you smell." 

"Hah," he said, "As if you don't." 

"How dare you, Clint Barton," she grinned at him. 

"No seriously. Take a bath. It will be lovely to sit in these huge tubs." she shuddered in delight imagining it as she got up to leave his room.

"Mhmm," he said, "Yeah, yeah, okay, I'll go. See you in an hour?"

"Yup.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so if someone IS for some reason enjoying this story, I', really sorry but my exams are literally on top of my head, so there will likely be no updates for at least a month. I'm soooo sorry.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony has a conversation with Fury.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay... so I said I won't be back for a month but my exams were postponed by two weeks and my brain refused to study anything until I got this out(kill me. I WILL FAIL.). So... good for you I suppose. But you DEFINITELY will not be seeing me for a month now.
> 
> Thank you the wonderful worstloki for beta reading this!!!

Tony just ended his call with Pepper. She’d been frantic. She’d fussed over how idiotic he’d been with the nuke but conceded that he had done the right thing, and then sobbed about how he’d nearly died.

Throughout the whole call, he felt a very deep fondness for Pepper and despite the fact that she was shouting at him, he couldn’t help but smile. What he had done in his whole life to deserve a wonderful woman like her, he would never understand. But the Universe had decided that he deserved at least at least two wonderful people in his life and he wasn’t going to complain. Speaking of which…. he still needed to talk to honey-bear. He groaned. Listening to Pepper’s mother-henning was bad enough, he couldn’t suffer Rhodey’s too.

What he really wanted right now was a nice, comforting cuddle with Pepper or to lay down in Rhodey’s lap feeling his familiar, calloused hand running through his hair. He sighed. No rest for the wicked, he supposed. 

He needed to talk to Fury now and that was a conversation he was _not_ looking forward to. He needed to take a shower first though. Any excuse to stall the call with Fury for some more time was a good excuse and well... he _did_ feel very icky with all the sweat and grime. At least the Chitauri guts were on the suit which he’d gotten rid of.

As he let the hot water thunder against his chest and back, he tried to avoid thinking about Loki for as long as possible. And wasn’t _that_ weird? That he was thinking about _Loki_ in the _shower?!_ Okay, no, he was _not_ thinking about Loki in the shower and — oh _crap_. He was thinking about Loki in the shower. He groaned. Was this what his life had come to? At least the dude was pretty and — _NO. Stop._ he ordered his traitorous mind. _Not_ going there today, not going there _ever._

He actually got out of the shower quickly. If he had to think about Loki anyway, he better do it out of the shower when he was not naked.

 _So_ , he thought, towelling himself dry, _what was the deal with Loki?_

It was time to think properly now. Also, what was the deal with Barton? He’d expected the man to act a lot more hostile towards Loki and had been afraid that handling him would be troublesome. But as it had turned out, not only did Barton not complain, he _wanted to stay in the tower where he was going to try and convince Fury to let Loki stay for the time being...?_ He had expected the man to want nothing to do with Loki or stay out of a 100 mile radius from the god. But he had agreed to _stay in the same building?!_

No matter that what he’d said about being ‘too involved to step back now’ and the fact that Fury would insist on SHIELD being involved were both true. If he had really wanted, he could’ve chosen to step back and this was one occasion where no one would blame him. But he had chosen not to and had _volunteered_ to stay. That was very interesting. He was sure Fury would certainly find it interesting too.

He pulled on an AC/DC shirt and jeans with a casual jacket while moving to his personal living room in his penthouse. 

His hair was not completely dry yet but he honestly couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment.

“Jarvis? Has our friendly _Pirate_ tried to get through yet?” he asked flopping down on the couch.

“Yes, sir. Three times till now.”

“Okay, great, let’s lend him an ear now, shall we? God, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but call Fury.”

Fury immediately took the call. Jarvis projected his face from the video call on his wall.

“Aw come on Jarv, why’d you do a video call?! I didn’t need to see his grumpy face!”

“Stark,” Fury said, ignoring his whine, “I’ve called you three times and you didn’t pick up. What could be so important that—“

“I was taking a shower. You know personal hygiene. Jarvis can show you footage as proof if you doubt,” He wiggled his eyebrows at Fury who just sighed.

“You called me thrice and now I called you back, which, let me tell you, is a _much_ bigger deal than it’d be even if you called me fifty times.”

It really would. You know… combined with the little fact that he’d sent a spy after him and instructed her to _drug_ him with lithium dioxide. (Which, What the Hell?!?! Clearly they hadn’t thought it through. He’d had a stiff neck for days afterward. He’d even bloated up. It had also affected his poor liver and caused him abdominal pain and just…. He still couldn’t freaking believe it.)

He honestly couldn’t believe that he had voluntarily contacted Fury. But, well….desperate situations called for desperate actions.

“Back to the matter at hand,” began Fury, ignoring his last statement again ( _rude)_ . “You’ve decided to keep Loki in your tower, _and_ you’ve decided to keep _both_ the Sceptre and the Tesseract in the very same tower.” 

Ah, so it looked like Romanoff had already spoken with him then.

Fury continued, “What makes you think that’s a good idea and where did you get the idea that you have the jurisdiction to—“

“Ah ah ah. Okay, stop, so... let’s start from the beginning.” 

Fury folded his arms across his chest and uncharacteristically waited for Tony to speak.

“So, we’ve got six super-heroes in this tower and one of which is the Hulk who completely smashed Loki,” —Fury raised an eyebrow— “One is the Norse god of thunder or lightning or whatever, a super soldier, a man in a can who just saved the city from a _nuke_ and two master assassin spies all of whom together took down a hostile alien _army_.” 

To be honest he didn’t think that Romanoff or Barton could do anything to Loki at all but he didn’t think it wise to mention it. (See, he _could_ keep his mouth shut,) but, then again, they’d have a better chance at getting out alive against Loki than he himself did without his suit.

“Even if the cell is not as strong as the cell meant for the Hulk on the Helicarrier—” here he shot Fury a dirty look but Fury just stared back “—It’s got highly durable and reinforced walls and unless you’ve got another cage like that stowed away somewhere, you’ve got to admit that this is the best that we can do. This is the best place to keep him till his trial or whatever.”

“Yes I thought so too,” said Fury startling Tony, “ _That’s_ not the part I had a problem with. However, doesn’t Thor have a problem with Loki being kept here?”

“Well, he did, he wanted Loki to be punished on Asgard and also wanted to take the Tesseract back to Asgard.” 

Fury opened his mouth but Tony cut him off.

“Yeah we told him that’s not gonna happen and for now he’s agreed to Loki being punished here and he’s staying, though the latter is most probably because he can’t go back to Asgard without the Tesseract.”

Fury raised his eyebrows. “But the last time he came here and went back in some sort of a rainbow Einstein-Rosen bridge or something….”

Tony groaned, “Seriously?! You’re calling it a ‘Rainbow’ bridge too?!”

Fury shrugged, “Anyway why does he need the Tesseract to return when last time he did so with this Rainbow bridge?” 

Tony glared at him. Then, he sighed.

“Well apparently due to some family drama between the two godly brothers, Thor _destroyed_ the Rainbow bridge,” when Fury opened his mouth Tony continued, “ _Yes_ we are sure it was Thor not Loki. He admitted it. And he did it intentionally.”

Fury shook his head and looked like he wanted to bang it somewhere. Again, _surprise_ _—_ On this occasion, Tony _agreed_ with him. 

“Well,” said Fury, “Looks like you’ll be hosting two alien gods for quite some time.”

“Uh huh,” said Tony, “Tell me about it.”

“And what do you have to say about the Tesseract and the Scepter?”

“Okay, there is _no bloody way_ I’m giving the Tesseract to you after learning about ‘Phase Two’ — You’re making the same mistake now, that Red Skull made seventy years ago! You _cannot_ make weapons out of the Tesseract.”

“Stark, _you_ should understand at least, even if Rogers doesn’t; What happens the next time an alien army comes at us? And there is a _high_ chance of a next time.”

Tony suppressed a flinch. As if he didn’t know. There wasn’t just a _high chance_ but _certainty_ that hostile aliens would knock their doors again. They _did_ need more powerful weapons, but he couldn’t risk trusting SHIELD with that. But if he didn’t let _others_ make weapons and made them himself, how was he any different. Besides, he _didn’t_ make weapons anymore.

“Yes,” Tony gritted out, “Yes there is, but what Thor said is also true— For all these years when the Tesseract was under the sea we were not attacked. When my dad got it out, SHIELD did not immediately start making weapons and no alien army came. It was _now_ when you were experimenting with the Tesseract, making weapons, _using it_ , that it caught unwanted attention. So is it really a good idea to continue making weapons out of it?”

“But now that we have already attracted attention isn’t it better to be ready from now rather than wait for the next time we are attacked?”

“I’m sure we didn’t catch the attention of everyone in the galaxy. Do you really want to risk doing that?” 

But he was getting frustrated. What Fury said made sense and that was what pissed him off the most. He was at war with himself _again_ but this time, the war didn’t just include him.

“And we crushed their army. They shouldn’t come after us again. Immediately, anyway.”

At least, that’s what Tony told himself.

“And if we attract the attention of the whole galaxy,” —he shrugged— “Who's gonna help us anyway.”

Tony wondered why he said that. Why was he making an argument for Fury to himself? Fury seemed to think the same if his raised eyebrow was an indication, but Tony didn’t miss the strange look that had flitted through his eyes from a fraction of a second. Then he wondered if Fury had _let_ him see it because after all like he’d told Rogers, Fury was **The** Spy. It wasn’t like him to let any unguarded expression appear on his face even if it was for less than a moment. He wondered what he meant. Then he wondered if he was reading too much into it. But he supposed there could never be too much reading into it with super spies.

Fury ignored his last statement and sighed, “I suppose that’s the reason you’re not handing over the sceptre either? And that the other Avengers all agree with you?”

“Yup and yup.”

“But we don’t know the composition of the sceptre, we don’t know anything about the sceptre except that it can mind control people and cause power blasts,” Fury tries one last time, already looking resigned, which surprised Tony because he wasn’t expecting Fury to give in so easily.

“Yup. But I can find it out for you.”

Fury sighed. “Well, I suppose the tower would be one of the safest places for it, but is it really a good idea to keep the Tesseract and the Scepter in close proximity to Loki?”

“Well, it’s not like Loki’s gonna be wandering about my tower or anything… In fact he doesn’t seem to wanna do anything at all.”

“He’s been quiet the whole time since we took him down to the cell.” 

He very much did not mention that they had been talking and discussing plans in front of him. He doesn’t plan on having that conversation any time soon.

He had some doubts as to where Loki had learned to be a chameleon and blend in with the surroundings but he didn’t know whether to mention it now or not. Also his not reacting in any way and being quiet and compliant to everything caused a strange feeling of disquiet in him. But Tony thought it was best to discuss it with the other Avengers first. He could always inform Fury after that. But he had to say _something_.

“He’s been completely compliant and not resisted anything, not even the magic-binding cuffs that Thor put on him.”

Fury frowned and sighed, “And that’s of course not like the Loki we’ve come to know in the last three days... And Romanoff informed me of certain other things.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. _What other things?_ He wanted to ask but of course he wouldn’t get an answer from Fury right now. He’d have to try to get it out of her and Barton in their meeting after this. High chances were that he’d fail but hey, he’d have tried.

“Yeah. So what about his trial and stuff? Any idea when that’s gonna happen?”

“Well,” said Fury, “Pierce is very eager to have Loki pay for his crimes, but there’s a lot to process through, so I’d say his trial could start in about a week at the earliest.”

Tony for some reason had a bad feeling about this. He also noted that Fury said that the trial _could_ start in a week, not _would._ And Fury was always very careful with his words, what with him being ‘the’ spy.

“Very… _eager_ you say?” he asked carefully. He may want Loki to be punished (he also needed to find out what the hell was up with Loki first) but… _not_ in some dubious and….well… _creative_ ways. No one deserved torture. After Afghanistan, he wouldn’t wish it on anyone. And he didn’t trust SHIELD in the least to not opt for those ways, especially if they needed information. Which they did, though, of course, Loki was not talking. It was one of the reasons that he didn’t want Loki in SHIELD’s hands. Though now that he thought about it….. if not in SHIELD’s hands… then where would Loki be after his trial…. but Thor couldn’t go back to Asgard without the Tesseract….

Loki couldn’t stay in the Tower forever! And Pepper! Oh _shit…_. He just realised that he’d dug himself into a hole.

He hoped he’d been able to keep his thoughts from appearing on his face in the split second that they’d rushed through his mind.

“And very determined,” Fury said. He didn’t answer the unasked question of _why_ he was so eager and determined. But in the end it was obvious, wasn’t it? Loki was an extraterrestrial being after all. Although, how Pierce thought he could _possibly_ restrain Loki was beyond Tony. He also had the feeling that if word got to Thor about it, then there would be many people getting fried. He had a feeling that Fury shared his concerns. Unlike some others, he wasn’t an idiot after all.

There was a pause. Then Fury changed the topic. Well… somewhat changed it.

“Discuss it with the other Avengers, see what they think.” 

_Well, obviously._

“Let me know what they think.”

Tony raised an eyebrow.

“You’re talking as if your little SHIELD lackeys won’t be telling you everything. Maybe even word to word.”

“They will be informing me of the important details, yes—” Tony snorted. _Important details. Right. Nothing else._ “—But I’d like to hear a different perspective too.”

Tony said nothing. This was all just so SHIELD could get on his good side now that they needed him. No, they needed his resources. That’s what this was always about, wasn’t it? His money, his fame, his resources.

“Also,” said Fury “Once again I ask, do you really think it’s a good idea to keep the Tesseract and the Scepter in the same building as Loki?”

“Well, he’s hardly going to be wandering around the Tower, is he?”

“You seem to be pretty confident that he won’t succeed in escaping. Who knows, maybe all this sudden compliance is part of a plan to escape? To catch you off guard?”

Yes it could certainly be that, but for some reason, Tony felt like Loki didn’t want to escape. He seemed…. _defeated._ Which, he supposed was true. He _had_ been defeated, but he had never seen a…’villain’ for the lack of a better word— be so…so docile after defeat... and so indifferent of his fate. 

Loki had seemed somewhat... detached, dispassionate from them all. And consider that his personality, just like Tony’s own had seemed loud and larger than life in the way it took over the whole place, this silence, this _placidness,_ reducing his presence to become almost invisible (without actually being invisible — which he’d learnt was _also_ something Loki could do) even while staying in the same room (once again he thought that Loki seemed far too competent in that art) caused him a strange sort of disquiet.

“Well,” he said, “He couldn’t exactly escape from the cell in the Helicarrier on his own, could he now? Yes this cell isn’t as strong as that one, but it still is strong enough that he shouldn’t be able to just literally _break_ out of it”

Or so he told himself. Loki _had_ survived the Hulk-smash after all and Tony didn’t know if this cell would be able to do the same…. But Loki didn’t seem very eager to leave….. yeah, Tony was starting to see the holes in this plan….

But he continued with a nonchalant attitude even as Fury raised a sceptical eyebrow, probably having come to the same conclusion as him, “And besides, he doesn’t even have access to his magic voodoo powers for now.”

At least he hoped that those Asgardian magic blocking cuffs (yes he had actually thought that— what was even his life anymore) were in good condition or they would be in deep shit. Probably. _If_ Loki wanted to escape. And the fact that he was doubting that a criminal would like to escape…. for some reason it started setting off alarm bells in his head.(The only obvious reasons he wouldn’t want to escape was either because he had completely lost all interest in everything, or he thought he was better off here than _somewhere_ else.)

Loki hadn’t even turned his nose down on the cell or shot them any nasty looks. In fact he had seemed surprised… by the _good (?)_ quality of the cell. Which... The cell only had like, the necessary and absolutely basic stuff needed for a temporary incarceration which was not too uncomfortable. It seemed he had expected to be kept in a much worse place (flashes of a dirty cave came to his mind and he forcefully pushed that down.)

Which.. didn’t make much sense….unless… he had tried not to think hard about this till now but… Loki had also seemingly expected to be treated worse (his head was pushed down into water— _I can’t breathe_ — again and again and _again_ —). And if that was the case…. what exactly had set his bar so low?

Tony knew that if he had noticed this, Romanoff must have too and she had probably told Fury, so he didn’t need to mention it. He wouldn’t have — _couldn’t_ have— mentioned it anyway.

Fury sighed.

“Where’s the cell anyway? What are the contingency security measures in place in case there _is_ a breach?”

Tony shot him a look.

“Bold of you to assume that I’ll share the location of the most secure cell and the security measures in place around it in _my_ tower, with you.” 

Hah. As if.

“I assure you I’ve assured that the cell is as highly secure as possible.” 

And he _had._ That was the first thing he had done even before talking to Pepper. Fury sighed but seemed to accept it. Tony narrowed his eyes briefly.

“Well, for once I’m going to take your word for it Stark.”

“Oh gee, that means so much to me.”

Fury seemed to be barely stopping himself from rolling his eyes. Tony shot him a sarcastic little grin.

“Very well then,” said Fury, “I’ll talk to the WSC, we should be able to convince them to let you keep Loki for now.” 

He noted that Fury said ‘for now’ in general and not ‘for a week’. He didn’t specify for how long Loki would be staying and therefore didn’t specify when the trial will be.

“Their blunder with the nuke will work in our favour and give us leverage over them.”

Tony’s brain short circuited. _Nuke_ — _? WSC?!_ After the battle he’d completely forgotten to think about _who_ had authorised the missile. Because someone had to have. And the WSC had the authority to override Fury’s command.

“The _WSC_ ordered the missile strike?! Have they all gone _mad?!_ Why would they even _think_ of doing that?!” Just because it had worked out in the end didn’t make the authorising the launch of a missile which could wipe out Manhattan any better. It was inexcusable. Besides, no one could have known that it would have worked out like it did ( _he was in space_ — _an endless alien army_ — _the suit was gone_ — _he couldn’t_ **_breathe_ ** — _he was gonna die, die,_ **_die_ ** — _)_ which meant that….

“They had been willing to sacrifice as many lives as required in order to take out the Chitauri in New York,” Fury said, finishing his thought.

Tony felt chilled to the core. _How could they_ — He shook his head suppressing a shiver. He wondered distractedly how much paperwork and clean up there would be if he sicced Pepper on them.

“Right. Right, yeah, that _does_ give us _leverage_. Don’t worry, I’ll pull some strings and make sure to use it and keep it in hand for the future.”

“Yes,” said Fury, “Threatening to out them to the UN would be better now than actually outing them, that would lose us our advantage.”

“Right,” said Tony, still unable to completely process this new information.

“Convincing Pierce will be the hardest, but I’ll try.”

“It’s the least you can do.”

Fury gave him a long look.

“Tell me what the others think.” 

With that Fury disconnected the call.

Tony sat silently for a long time and then sighed. Well, he’d better get ready to meet up with the others again in a few minutes. Then suddenly realising something he said, ”Jarvis, our defences are strong and SHIELD can’t hack into anything here, right?”

“I am offended that you might consider otherwise, sir.”

Tony grinned. “Yeah, well better to be paranoid than take a risk. Don’t want SHIELD sneaking about running heat or energy scans or stuff, trying to find Loki’s location in the tower.”

“Wait… did _I_ just say ‘better to be paranoid than take a risk’? Wow. What is happening to me?”

“I would say that in light of the latest events you are trying to be just a little more careful, sir.”

Tony rolled his eyes. 

“Yes thank you for that,” then he paused.

“Does that sound like something Fury would say?”

“Somewhat I suppose, sir.”

“Oh my god!” Tony groaned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I just wrote a chapter with pretty much only conversation between two people of 3900 words.  
> (Also I'm just as much in the dark as to what's gonna happen after this as you.) 
> 
> (You're free to skip the rambling below in italics.)  
>  _You know, I'd love to know what explanation the MCU has as to how LiO2(Lithium Dioxide) exists there at (presumably)room temperature.  
>  When I first looked up what Black Widow had injected Tony in IM2, it honestly said Adrenaline. Adrenaline!(Seriously?!) Later I found it was LiO2-Lithium dioxide- and my first thought was of how it could possibly exist, since it implies that Lithium would have to give away 4 electrons, but Li HAS only three electrons to give away.  
> Then I found that that LiO2 apparently exists as Lithium Superoxide which is an inorganic compound and has only been isolated in matrix isolation experiments at 15-40 K(Colder than 230 degree centigrade). The melting point is 25 degree centigrade, where it DECOMPOSES. Hence my question about it existing at room temperature.  
> _
> 
> Sorry for my rambling (I don't understand part of what I'm talking about anyway).
> 
> Your comments would make my day!
> 
> Wish me luck!  
> So, see you in a month!  
> Sayonara!
> 
>  **Edit:** _So... evidently from the time our delayed exams were supposed to be... will be a series of mock tests. And the actual final exams will be about a week after the mock tests start. So in case you for some reason ARE waiting for me to upload again.. I may not be back till April._


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